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A Mid-19th Century View on Epilepsy

Dieter Schmidt, MD

Arch Neurol. 1988;45(9):1042-1044.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The European neurologist Théodore Herpin (1799-1865) has greatly influenced our knowledge of epilepsy as a neurologic disorder. In his double law of identity, he suggested that incomplete (partial) seizures evolve into generalized tonic-clonic seizures, and, furthermore, that the clinical phenomenology at the onset of a seizure is always or nearly always identical for an individual patient. His longitudinal observations indicated that the therapeutic outcome is poorer in epilepsy of long duration and in patients with a high number of seizures prior to treatment or delayed treatment and in those with neuropsychiatric deficits. Herpin recom-mended zinc oxide for the treatment of epilepsy and, surprisingly, reported a failure rate similar to that of modern antiepileptic drug treatment. Finally, in 1867 Herpin² provided the first clinical description of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (impulsive petit mal).

Théodore Herpin has profoundly influenced our knowledge of the clinical manifestations of epileptic seizures and of the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Klinikum Grosshadern, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, West Germany.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Oct 7, 1987.

Reprint requests to Marchioninistrasse 15, 8000 Munich, 70, West Germany (Dr Schmidt).

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